I groan. Of course she'd challenge a draken. Of course. Because apparently surviving one near-death experience tonight wasn't enough for Rowan Lexington Ainsley. The woman has the self-preservation instincts of a moth circling a bonfire.
Interesting,Nyx muses.She doesn't smell like fear. Good thing stupidity has no smell. I've a sensitive nose.
"She's just too exhausted to be properly terrified.”
No,Nyx corrects, his massive head tilting slightly as he continues his examination.She smells like defiance. And blood. And something else...He pauses, his nostrils flaring delicately.Power. Raw, untapped power that she doesn't fully understand yet.
“I call bullshit,” Rowan says through clenched teeth. “First of all, ‘not understanding’ isn’t a smell. Second, why are you in my head? Also, can we get back to the mate thing? And maybe stop talking about me in the third person?"
I exchange a look with Nyx, who huffs another puff of smoke. The draken's golden eyes gleam with what I've learned to recognize as his particular brand of unhelpful amusement. For a creature who's lived centuries, he has the emotional maturity of a particularly vindictive adolescent.
I heard that.
“Good for you.”
“Will either one of you damn males tell me what the bloody hell is going on?” Rowan shouts, her composure finally cracking.
Guilt floods me at once.
“Come here, rabbit.” Crouching beside Rowan, I wrap an arm around her and slowly guide her into my lap, settling us both on the ground. Thankfully, she lets me do it, though I know it's not because she wants to. She just has nothing left in her to keep herself upright. I pull her closer, trying to share what little warmth I have left. My body aches from the beating I took earlier, but having her in my arms dulls the pain to something manageable. Something worth enduring.
Tell her, or I will.And I'm far less diplomatic than you are,Nyx presses.
Diplomatic isn't a word I'd use to describe either of us, but I trust Nyx to deliver this set of facts even less than I trust myself. How do you tell someone they're the other half of your soul when they've only just learned you're not even the same species? “The mate thing… it’s… it's not something wolves choose, exactly. It just happens. A recognition, a pull that goes deeper than conscious thought."
Shit. I’m making it sound like catching the pox. Though in Rowan’s case, that may not be far off. I am a pox so far as the wolves are concerned. A stray omega.
I pause, trying to find the right words. Or at least better words. Even as I think, I’m unable to stop myself from stroking her hair. It's still wet, just like the rest of her. Rowan is cold. Freezing. I yank off my shirt and peel off the ragged remains of Rowan’s soggy dress. “Body heat,” I say quickly, getting ahead of her protest. “It’s better skin to skin. And you need all the heat you can get. If only so you can stay alive long enough to cut my throat.”
Nyx snorts but waddles himself closer, his wing settling around us like a tent. After a moment he huffs a lung full of warm steam inside and Rowan groans softly in relief.
Tell anyone, and you won’t be alive long enough for her to slit your throat,the draken informs me.
“I knew what you were to me the first time I scented you,” I confess into Rowan’s hair, though I don’t mention that that first time was before my mission to the Spire. “It felt like my soul had been waiting for yours. Like without yours, it would never be complete."
“How do we undo it?” Rowan asks.
It’s all I can do not to flinch. Not to let her know how much those words hurt. I fight to keep my voice even. "The mating bond is not something anyone can undo anymore than it can be forced. Wolves, like other fae, mate for life.”
She stiffens and I know for a fact that she’d walk away from me if she had any strength left. I thank the stars that she doesn’t. That I get to hold her at least this one last time. My bare chest against her back feels right in a way that makes my heart ache.
"So I'm stuck with you? Because some wolf instinct decided it likes human?"
"No." The words taste like ash in my mouth, but they're true. And after everything I’ve put her through—the lies, the betrayal, the kidnapping—she deserves the full truth. "You aren’t stuck with anything. The bond... it affects me, not you. Humans don't mate the way fae do. You're free to choose whoever you want."
“It won’t be you,” Rowan says, her voice fading as her body becomes heavy with sleep. “It won’t be any of you.”
“I know.” I breathe in her scent—honey and citrus, now mingled with blood and pain—and fight the urge to bury my face in her hair. My eyes sting. “I know,” I say, this time in a whisper.
Rowan’s only response is the steady breathing of deep sleep.
Chapter 20
Kai
“It’s been a week.” I cross my arms, staring down at the healer who is packing up her satchel, having accomplished absolutely nothing more than she had any other day she’s checked on Rowan.
"Prince Kai." The healer's voice carries the patience of someone who's had this conversation multiple times already. "The young woman burned through more raw magic in a single moment than most fae use in a lifetime. Her body is... recovering. Or trying to. But this isn't an injury I can heal with herbs or magic. This is her very essence attempting to rebuild itself from the inside out."
